The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-04-09
10 The Rum MAKER.
One of Henry Ward Beecher's Early APP
peals to Him in Behalf of Society and
the Nation.

One of Henry Ward Beecher's Early APP
peals to Him in Behalf of Society and
the Nation.
While you sleep, some miserable |
wretch reels under the influence of the |
liquor made by you. While every |
morning, around the family altar, you
breathe Christians thanksgiving, and
utter a supplicant's prayer, your whisky
is busily at work opening hundreds of
mouths with bitter curses. On the
Sabbath day, thank God, that long,
broad, gloomy stream of upward smoke
from your distillery, which reminds
men that pass by your town of the
smoke of the torment of the pit, is
allowed to rest, and Lawrenceburgh
has pure air for one day in the week.
On this blessed morning, the siX-days'
heated still begins to cool-on this only
day the fifty barrels 90 untitled of
whisky. But as you turn your steps to
the church, to partlke of its refresh
ment and worship, how many are there
who have been drunk all night on your
whisky, and whose heads yet reel with
the fumes, and will reel until they "seek
it again" While you look Heaven
ward, they tend hellward.
Oh, sir; do you ever 90 to the com
munion table? Do you ever sit down
in humble penitence to take those
affecting symbols of Him who, for your
sake, became poor, was broken, cruel
fed? Even while the consecrated wine
is upon your lips, your whisky is still
at work in some Bacchanal crew, who
disturb the stiffness of the day with
oaths, disappearing Him in whom you
/ trust for salvation, and whose death
you commemorate!
What if you should sit down in the
quietness of some Sabbath evening,
and in that hour ripe for meditation,
by some supernatural power God
should bring before your eyes all the
results of the whisky made by you.
From the tent of the far-away Indian,
from the hamlets on the verge of civil
ization, from the villages far and near,
from vale and hillside, from dens of
vice and lairs of crime, from the adul-
terer's chamber and from the murder
er's haunt, would come trooping to
your eye all the CHASTITY disfgure-
ments of abomnable iniquity-each
impersonated evil as it fitted past,
would point at you its withered hand
and cry: Thou art my authorl'
Grimes would hail you. All the hid
eous temptations that do destroy men
would bow to you and cry out in
hoarse tones: Hail! my parentr'
And would not your own conscience,
breaking its prison doors where it has
been immured, join; and loudest,
sharpest, most authoritative of them
all, summon you to meet that God on
whose creatures you have not ceased
to pour that destroying stream from
the distillerv?
Oh, sir, your heart surely is not
turned to stone; you yet, | would fain
believe, have hours of reflection and of
conscience-stricken forebodings. then
appeal to you as man, as Christian,
to desist from this most detestable,
most accursed traffic By all the mis-
cry which it works, by all the tears
which it draws from orphanage and
widowhood, by the misrule and de-
bauch which it spreads, by the violence,
BY the fate of those who by it are
brought down to the grave, by all
sweet affections blighted, and hopes
smi ten, by your hatred of crime and
yo detestation of vice, by your re-
gard for religion, for your own account
in that awful and impending hour, | be-
seech you to stop this nefarious business,
to put out those fires which are burn
ing soul and body. Once more return
to the church in your right mind. Dis
miss that fatal idea with which Satan
has caioled you, that you shall make
gain by distilling. God is against you.
His providence will turn your ways
upside down. Money got by unjust
ways is Gods sharpcst curse upon the
getter 1t will eat you like canker.
Your gold will sweat blood in your
hands, or it will distill it on your chill
Gren. If you pursue this course, after
perhaps a short and Elusive prosperity,
| YOU will stumble headlongin your way.
with temporal and eternal ruin.
But is money the only thing that n
nation wantsP Would nation of rich
slaves be enviablop Could all the bow
els of the earth afford gold enough to
pay us for our laws our freedom, our
honest industry, our schools, colleges
and churchesP
The money made by immoral means
is worse than counterfeit. 1t damns
the men, and will damn the people that
| lnyn Il onoanl IN avarv bonaat man